When
I hit my brother in the temple with the cast iron frying pan, he just
fell. He
did not resist in any sense of the word. Even his skull, the flesh just
collapsed. He did not even make a sound. Just down, no struggle.

After it happened, I dropped the frying pan and
walked
outside the old house. It was our house, the one we lived in as kids.
It was
used as storage now.

He
was back there in his old room, crumpled on the tan carpet, and he was
most
certainly dead. I did not need anyone to tell me that. I did not need
to check
his pulse or lean in close to feel his breath on my cheek. No, there
would be
none of that.

I sat on the concrete steps of the porch. There was
a
huge crack that started on the bottom step and led up to the second. I
sat with
my elbows on my knees. I looked at it, the crack.

*

When
me and my brother were kids, maybe when I was 8 or 9, and he was 9 or
10, we
put firecrackers called Black Cats in the crack because there was
always these
giant red ants that crawled out. Fire Ants, I think.

We thought, maybe, that we could blow those red ants
to
hell. We put in one firecracker after the other and lit the fuse and
waited for
the red ants to die. But, they didn’t die. Those red ants started
sending out
their soldiers and pretty soon the front steps were crawling with those
bastards. They were all over, and the more ants that came out on the
porch the
more fire crackers we lit. He had to toss them on the porch because we
no
longer had the luxury of sitting there and calmly placing those little
bombs in
their home.

We were alone when we did that. We were alone a lot,
more
so than kids should be, I think.

I sat there for awhile, thinking about those brave
ants.
I also thought about my brother, mostly when we were kids.

*

One
time we found a dead water snake on the road. It had been run over by a
car. My
brother picked it up with the end of a stick. He held it out, the snake
dangling, lifeless, and he said, “Hit it.”

So I picked up a stick, positioned my body just
right,
swung, and hit that goddamn snake. Its long body rippled from the
violence, and
we laughed.

We took turns and pretty soon the snake started to
come
to pieces. I don’t remember, but there was probably dusty snake guts on
our
clothes, our skin. We destroyed that snake.

*

We
were alone then too.

*

Another
time, maybe when I was 4 or 5 and he was 5 or 6, we came home from
school and
our grandma was upset because the goat from next door had eaten her
flowers. I
remember her saying, “That damn goat ate my flowers.”

Later that day, we kept our eyes out and sure enough
we
saw the goat over by grandpa’s tool shop. My brother said, “Come on,
let’s get
him.” We ran outside, grabbed our favorite sticks and ran up to the
goat.

He was just standing there, looking at us. And then my
brother stood on the side of the goat, reared back with his stick like
a spear
and threw it into its side. I stood on the other side. I brought my
weapon over
my head and slammed it down over the back of the goat. I still remember
the
vibration of the stick as it connected with the goat’s spine. The
noise, the
feeling, it jarred me and there was a moment there, when I realized
that I may
have hurt the goat.

But I didn’t want to stop. I didn’t want to say
“No,” because
I could disappoint my brother. It was an odd feeling, hitting that
goat,
spearing it, pretending to kill it.

It
had nothing to do with courage.

*

Sitting
there on the porch of our old house, I thought of these things. I
thought of my
brother, back there, in the room. Maybe there was blood leaking out of
his ears
now, his nose. Maybe he deserved it. I believed he did, for what he did
to me,
what he made me do when we were young. I don’t know, though.

I
didn’t want to go back in there and look at him. So I thought of him as
if he
was long gone. The way you think of others that have died in the past.

*

Another
time, my brother had bought a sling shot and we took turns trying to
shoot the
black birds that rested on the barbed wire fence. We kept missing. But,
I felt
my aim getting better, and I kept getting closer and closer. Then, I
pulled
back on the sling shot, let a small rock loose and knocked down a bird.

“Yes!” I said, “I got one!” Then we ran over where
the
bird had fallen. Lying on its back, we looked down at the bird. It was
not
dead. It laid there moving its beak, opening and closing. Its eye, a
perfect
circle. I shouldn’t have looked at its eye, but I did.

*

I
thought about that bird, stood up and looked in the direction of my
brother. I
walked in the living room and looked about.

Random bits of items. VHS tapes, clothes, a barbell
with
weights, CDs, a basketball trophy, a dresser, an upright piano.

I looked at the door to his room. There was a
sticker
that read, “The Few. The Proud. The Marines.”

I stood there, in the middle of the living room. I
wanted
to go in the room and look at my brother, but I knew that it would only
make me
feel bad, so I just stood there.

After a bit, I sat on the bench in front of the
piano. I
played the middle C key and let it linger. Then I played a C chord.

The piano was out of tune. It sounded harsh, grating.

I stood up, walked outside and stood on the porch. The
sun was up high overhead. I looked at the crack in the porch again.

Those poor, brave ants, I said.

I descended the steps, walked out of the driveway to
the
dirt road. I left the heavy front door open. I walked east and wondered
how
long it would be before someone found my brother. What would people
say? How
long before they figured out that it was me?

I
pushed these thoughts out of my head. I didn’t want to walk on the
road, so I
crawled through a barbed wire fence and walked through an alfalfa field.

I thought of the piano. The sound of the keys.

Overhead a hawk soared and a black bird darted up and
down, attacking the hawk. I stopped, squinted, and watched this.